She blinks. “What else what?”
“What else haven’t you done? That you want to.”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her finger traces the rim of her cup, and I can tell she’s running the question through whatever filter she uses before she lets anything real out.
“Rock climbing,” she says. “On an actual mountain. Not a gym wall. I want to feel real stone under my hands.”
“I love that. What else?” My thumb drags across the condensation on my cup, but my eyes don’t leave her face.
“Kayaking. In one of those bioluminescent bays where the water glows when you touch it.” She’s leaning forward now, elbows on the table. “Hiking. Real hiking, not walking on a paved path in a gated resort. I want to sleep in a tent and wake up smelling pine trees. Make s’mores over a campfire. Stay out past midnight just because I can.”
I could listen to her talk like this all day. The want in her voice is electric.“Keep going.”
“Surfing. I’ve watched people do it from that beach for two months and I’ve never once gone in past my knees.” She laughs, and it comes out almost angry. “I live on the ocean and I’ve never been in it. How pathetic is that?”
“It’s not pathetic.”
“It’s a little pathetic.”
I hold her gaze until she looks away. “Nat.”
“Fine. It’s just...” She trails off, looking out the fogged window. Wind kicks a paper cup across the asphalt. “It’s a long list, Johnny. That’s all.”
I take another sip of my smoothie, but it tastes like nothing. Everything she just listed. Every single thing. These are things people do on a random Saturday because they’re bored and the weather’s nice. And she’s been locked out of all of it.
Fuck her father. Fuck the cage. Fuck every man who’s ever made this woman feel small.
I don’t know my name. I don’t know what’s waiting for me when the rest of my memory kicks in. But I watch her start to tuck those dreams away, and I know I want to see this woman stand on top of a mountain.
“We’ll start small.” My voice is rough.
She frowns. “Start what?”
“The list.” I reach across the mosaic tiles and wrap my hand around hers. Her fingers are cold from the smoothie cup. “You want to live, Natalia? We’re going to live.”
Her breath catches. She stares at our joined hands, and I watch her pulse jump at the base of her throat.
She doesn’t pull away.
And my brain—my stupid, broken, swiss-cheese brain—starts filling in pictures I never asked for. Her on a rock face, chalk on her fingers, laughing down at me because I can’t keep up. Waking up in a tent with her hair in my face and her elbow in myside. Watching her paddle into water that glows blue every time she moves.
I’m in every single frame. I didn’t mean to put myself there. I just am.
Somewhere underneath, the other memories are waiting. The blood, the violent flashes, the scars I can’t explain. But right now, none of that matters.
She matters.
Natalia squeezes my hand, and I squeeze back, and whoever I was before this moment is someone I don’t need to be anymore.
Whatever’s locked in the rest of my memory—whoever that guy was, whatever he did—can stay buried a little longer.
Actually, it can stay buried forever, for all I care.
17
JOHNNY
“I don’t wantto go inside yet. Do you?”
